MM001: Breaking the Rules of Retirement: A Manifesto

On today’s inaugural episode, we talk about the goals and objectives the podcast, household budgeting, the difference between "retirement" and "personal finance" one of the first tools I used while getting a handle on our personal finances and I'll give you a little background info as we chart our household's journey to Modest Millions. IN THIS WEEK'S EPISODE * Personal finance principles * Budgeting basics * Household budgeting * Objectives and goals of this podcast * Difference between "retirement" and "personal finance" * Quick overview of Personal Capital * A little about my situation and background BREAKING THE RULES OF RETIREMENT: A MANIFESTO I don't know about you, but personal finance can be a scary and confusing topic. I’ve always found it to be interesting, but I’ll be the first to admit: it’s complicated. It’s easy to worry about doing it wrong, or you might think that it’s only for those who figured out some secret money handshake back in the 80s. For me, the principles of personal finance were instilled by mom as I was heading off to college; she made me create a budget, which at the time I thought was a pointless exercise. She had me track all my expenses in a spreadsheet and monitor income and cash flow. Ever since, I’ve been called everything from cheap to frugal to budgeteer, all titles I wear with pride, by the way. But at the same time, even though we were getting income increases at work as we climbed our career ladders, I’ve seen our our expenses grow at almost the same rate. As a result, we weren’t really saving for retirement or for a rainy day. We’ve also moved a lot for work, which has meant that we’ve bought and sold more houses in a few short years than some people do in a lifetime. It’s amazing how those costs add up and have directly impacted our finances. About 18 months ago, I realized it was time to get back on the budget bus, so I hit blogs, books and podcasts to figure out how to whip our budget back into shape. As I dug in and researched, I was amazed by what I learned. First, there were a lot of families like ours, who had bloated households budgets that were trying to figure out how to trim and tone their budgets so they could better save and invest for an attainable and comfortable retirement. Second, with a little bit of discipline and simply a firm understanding of how money works that we can shift how we manage our personal finances and achieve our financial objectives in shorter time than we might have otherwise thought possible. I heard it once said that you find where your passions lie when you find yourself talking faster and louder, when you find yourself geeking out and talking about it to everyone you know, even when they’d rather you just shut up. So, after excitedly sharing my learning with anyone who would listen over the course of the last year, I figured I’d channel that passion into a podcast to breakdown the walls and taboos of talking openly about personal finance. With this being the inaugural Modest Millions episode, I wanted to focus today on what this podcast is and will be, and what it isn’t and won’t be; it’ll be like a manifesto of sorts. What this podcast isn't and won't be * I'm not a professional, will never pretend to be an expert, all I can do is share what I've learned. By all means, seek professional advice before implementing any of the strategies we cover. * No extreme budgeting techniques. We'll be focused on achieving financial goals with realistic situations. Some have proven successful with saving 50-80% of their income and making their own shoes and churning their own butter (I kid!). They’ve sacrificed for a short period of time and ab...